Kota student suicides subject of psychologist’s PhD research

Kota (Rajasthan) student suicides have become a topic of debate for stakeholders. Dinesh Sharma, head of the psychology department at Government Nursing College, conducted research and submitted his thesis to the district admin. 23 coaching students have committed suicide this year, highest ever. Sharma's thesis has recommendations to ensure students don't struggle with depression. He suggests no ranking system, quarterly fees, and no segregation of students. Admin has taken steps to prevent suicides, such as anti-hanging devices and anti-suicide nets. Police are also roping in wardens to look for signs of depression.

Student suicides in coaching hub Kota have not just become a topic of debate for various stakeholders including politicians, institutions, police and parents but was also the subject of a psychologist's PhD research.

Dinesh Sharma, head of the psychology department at Government Nursing College in Kota, had counselled over 400 students taking coaching for engineering and medical entrance exams.

He decided to do his PhD on stress levels and different issues bothering students and pitched it to the Jaipur National University. He finished his PhD last month and has also submitted his thesis to the district administration which is experimenting with several measures to battle student suicides.

Twenty-three coaching students in Kota have ended their lives this year so far, the highest ever number. Last year, the figure was 15.

Mr. Sharma's thesis has several recommendations for the stakeholders to ensure students do not struggle with depression and do not feel compelled to take the extreme step.

"When I counselled the coaching students, I realised how this subject has never been studied in depth. Several measures have been attempted but they are just stopgap arrangements which are also not clearly working. I started researching on it and realised that barring few papers there is no published work on the subject and hence I decided to do the first PhD on the topic," Mr. Sharma told PTI in an interview.

"I reached out to coaching institutes and picked up 10 variables to conduct my study. The variables included age, gender, type of family the student belongs to — nuclear family or joint, type of residence — with parents, rented house or hostel, family history of depression or suicide and monthly family income. I interacted with students and tried to find out how any of these variables impacted the students and contributed to stress in them," he added.